'Yes, I was dead:' Zimbabwe's Mugabe back after disappearing

BINTANGNEWS.com
–Zimbabwe's
92-year-old President Robert Mugabe arrived home Saturday after an overseas
absence that led to rumors about a health crisis, joking to reporters that
"Yes, I was dead."

"It is true that
I was dead," the world's oldest head of state said. "And I
resurrected. As I always do."

"Are we speaking
to a ghost?" someone asked him.

"Once I get back
to my country, I am real," Mugabe said.

The president had not
been seen since leaving a regional summit early on Tuesday. Flight data showed
his plane went to Dubai after the original flight path indicated a course
toward Asia. Mugabe has received treatment in Singapore in the past.

His spokesman had
denied reports that Mugabe, the target of near-daily protests in recent weeks,
was ill. The president told people Saturday he had been away attending to
family matters. He later addressed a youth meeting at his ruling party's
headquarters.

His absence had
raised the level of uncertainly in this southern African country already in
economic and political turmoil. Frustration has been rising in Zimbabwe over a
plummeting economy and allegations of government corruption.

Police on Thursday
banned protests in the capital for two weeks, on the eve of a demonstration
planned by a newly formed coalition of opposition groups.

Mugabe has been in
power since 1980, and many in Zimbabwe have known no other leader in their
lifetime. He has said he would run again in elections in 2018.